Aftermath
by Rachel Hawkins
Summary: The island's inhabitants are rocked by the events following the launching of the raft. Post Exodus. Chapter 6: Kate and Sawyer try to figure out what happened at the caves.
1. Desolation

Chapter 1: Desolation

Floating.

He was drifting on a hazy cloud of pain and confusion, no idea where he was or how he'd gotten there. In his mind's eye he saw a strange jumble of fleeting images he couldn't grasp for more than a second. A raft. A radar screen. A fishing trawler. Evil eyes. A gun. Water.

Sawyer surfaced with a gasp. He went under again immediately, choking on a mouthful of ocean water. He spread his arms to propel himself back to the surface, and fire burst on his shoulder and radiated out. He stopped immediately, waves of dizziness and nausea cascading over him. Even though it was already pitch black, he felt blackness obscuring his vision. His consciousness faded.

No.

Using his good arm, he stroked toward the surface. He pumped his legs, fighting to rise an inch at a time. His injured arm floated limp at his side. His lungs burned. How far down had he fallen? How much further did he have to rise?

And then his head broke the surface.

He immediately went into a coughing fit, his lungs doing their best to expel the unwelcome water. He gasped, choked, fought to get a decent breath while keeping his head above water. He pumped his legs and stroked with his good arm.

The coughing fit died down as his lungs expelled the last of the water. His throat was raw, and his head pounded worse than he ever remembered. And above all, he was tired. But he fought it, because those bastards were not going to kill him. He was not going to die on their terms. They could shoot him and leave him in the middle of the ocean, but damned if he would make it easy on them and let himself go.

He became aware of an unnatural brightness, a strange light coming from somewhere behind him. It was all coming back to him. The floating images were finally coming together, but he wasn't liking what he saw. They'd been on the raft and had spotted something on the radar screen. But it hadn't been help, it hadn't been rescue. It had been their destruction.

He turned his head, and his vision was assaulted by the sight of the raft on fire. Shit. His mind rebelling at what he saw, he took a deep breath—as deep as he could manage—and started stroking awkwardly toward it. There had to be something they could salvage. This could not all be for nothing.

The heat of the fire washed over him. He turned his face away from it, squinting as the heat tried to burn his eyes. They weren't going to be able to save anything from that. Not only could they not get close enough, but even if they could, it would all be burned by the time they got there. There was no way anything could survive that heat. He turned away, desolation warring with a deep, abiding anger. Those sons of bitches had taken Walt. They'd shot him, burned the raft, then sped off to God knew where. Well, they weren't going to get away with it, he thought fiercely.

It might be the only good thing he did in his life, but he was going to get that kid back.

He heard a voice, a plaintive cry for help come from somewhere nearby. He looked around, but all he saw in the fire-lightened sky was chaos.

"Hey!" he shouted, trying to be heard over the din of the flames. "Michael! Ji—"

His head dipped below the water again, sending him into another coughing fit when he resurfaced. "Son of a bitch," he muttered. "Jin! Michael!"

He listened, and this time he knew he heard a voice. After a moment it came a little closer, and he recognized the voice as Jin's. Couldn't understand a word the man was saying, but at least he was alive.

He looked to his right and saw the Korean man clinging to a chunk of the raft that must have broken off. It wasn't big enough for them to sit on, but it was floating. Better than nothing, he thought, a burst of adrenaline combatting fatigue as he paddled his way toward the other man.

What seemed like an eternity later, he reached the jagged remnants of one corner of the raft. He swung his good arm across it and gave it his weight, shuddering as he finally fell still. He closed his eyes. He was so tired. Distantly he knew it must be because he was losing blood, but it was hard to care.

Jin said something to him. Sawyer sensed the urgency in his tone, but the words escaped him. "Don't understand you," he muttered.

The Korean man pointed to his shoulder and spoke quickly. "Yeah. Sucks, don't it? Bastard got his shot off first." His head dipped low, then jerked back up again.

Jin shook him, and Sawyer somehow knew the man was urging him to stay awake. He nodded dumbly. Jin tugged on his shirt, causing Sawyer to look over and frown. "I don't think you want my shirt. It's got a hole in it." When it dawned on him that maybe Jin wanted him to take his shirt off, he added, "Sorry, man. Don't swing that way."

Jin shook his head and said something else, and when he was still misunderstood, he pressed his hand against Sawyer's shoulder. "Agh! Damn it!" Sawyer shouted, the intense flash of pain chasing away his exhaustion. "What the hell are you doing?"

Jin pointed to Sawyer's shirt, then again motioned as if to press his hand to his shoulder. And it hit him. _He wants to bandage the wound._ "Yeah, all right." Holding his injured shoulder close to his side, he reached up and unbuttoned his shirt. Awkwardly, gritting his teeth as he was forced to use his injured arm to keep himself above water, he worked the shirt off.

Jin took the shirt, and over the din of the waves and flames from the still-burning raft, he heard the shirt rip. He watched as Jin tore it into strips. One of the strips he bunched up and pressed against the front of Sawyer's shoulder, indicating he should hold it there. Gritting his teeth, he did it. When he felt something press against the back of his shoulder pain shot through him again, and he wondered how he'd managed to stay conscious this long.

After what seemed like an eternity, but was maybe thirty seconds, Jin began wrapping the remnants of the shirt around him as a makeshift bandage.

In the back of his mind, Sawyer wondered if all of the Korean man's efforts were going to be for nothing. He'd lost a lot of blood, and with the raft blown to hell, they had no way to get back to the beach. Nor did they know where the hell the beach was. They were fifteen miles out to sea with no boat and no navigation equipment.

When Jin finished the bandage he muttered, "Thanks, man," and closed his eyes.

Suddenly he was back on the beach, moments before the launching of the raft. Everybody had gathered around, anxious, excited, hopeful. Many of them believed that the raft was a sure thing, that they were guaranteed rescue. Sawyer was more cautious, but that didn't mean he was giving up his spot on the raft. Because it might not have been a sure thing, but it was a chance.

The hardest part had been those last few moments, watching everyone say their goodbyes. Strangers and near strangers, everyone hugging and kissing and fighting off tears. He'd been in the middle of it all, loading the raft. Alone. Nobody had wanted to say goodbye to him. Not that he'd cared. He hadn't. And yet...he'd found himself glancing back toward his empty shelter and the one nearby. Glancing back toward the tree line, a part of him he'd never acknowledge hoping that _she_ would appear.

She would have said goodbye; at least he thought so. After what he'd done—what he'd been forced to do—on the beach the day before, he couldn't be positive though. But she hadn't been there.

As the cool ocean water lapped at his now-bare skin, he remembered hearing that a small group had left with the crazy French chick to find dynamite at the black rock, whatever the hell that was. He was surprised they'd trusted the old bat to lead them anywhere.

He wondered if they'd found this black rock and gotten everyone into the hatch. He sure as hell hoped so, because their chance of rescue was going up in flames.

He opened his eyes again. He didn't want to think about the scene on the beach, or what anyone left on the island was doing. He didn't want to think about Kate. All he wanted to think about was surviving the night so that come morning they could try to get the hell back to land. Then he'd worry about the rest of it.

Jin shouted something, and he turned his head and followed Jin's extended hand. For a moment he saw nothing except bobbing waves and floating debris. But then Michael materialized, clinging to a heavy piece of bamboo that had broken away. Jin shouted at him, but for several moments he didn't respond, didn't move. Sawyer began to wonder if he was dead, until he lifted his head and looked toward them.

Jin waved his arm, and after a moment Michael began to slowly stroke toward them. A few minutes later he made it to them, and even in the dark Sawyer recognized the haunted, helpless look in his eyes.

"They took my boy," Michael murmured, more to himself than anything else. "They took my boy."

"We'll figure it out in the morning," Sawyer said, not really knowing what to say. He knew nothing about comforting others. For as long as he could remember, he'd specialized in the opposite. Maybe it was the desperate nature of their situation, maybe it was all the blood he'd lost, but it just seemed like he should say something, anything, if only to pass time until the sun came up.

Michael slowly lifted his head. "Yeah? How do you plan to do that? We've got no raft, and no way to find the beach again."

Sawyer's eyes felt heavy, his mind sluggish. He hoped the bleeding stopped soon. "Think positive man," he said, and if he hadn't been so tired he would have laughed at his own foolishness.

"That's easy for you to say," Michael said. "Those...freaks...didn't just take your boy."

"And they didn't just put a hole in your shoulder," Sawyer shot back.

Michael stopped and looked at Sawyer's shoulder, at the makeshift bandage. "They shot you?" he asked dumbly.

"I was still raising my gun when they shot theirs. Hope I don't turn us into shark bait," he muttered.

They lapsed into silence as the fire died down. The only sounds were the soft lapping of waves and the occasional sigh or groan. Sawyer thought that he must have slept for a time, because every so often he startled awake with nightmarish images floating through his mind. Maybe he was getting a fever. Maybe this was how it was finally going to end. In the middle of the damn ocean, a hole in his shoulder. Never having a chance to make anything right.

It couldn't end like this. On the raft, before everything had gone wrong, Michael had accused him of wanting to die. And maybe a part of him did. A part, but not all. There were things he had to do before everything could end.

As his heavy eyes fell closed again, he hoped distantly that it wasn't for the last time.


	2. Lonely Road

Chapter Two: Lonely Road

The explosion rocked the trees, sending debris flying and shaking loose the weak leaves hanging on the branches above her. Kate ducked down and instinctively brought her arms up over her head. When the debris settled and the clearing was quiet, she stood up and left her cover.

Jack and Locke waved away the dust, then cautiously approached the hatch. Kate stood back, watching for the moment, waiting to see if it had worked. When she saw that the heavy hatch door was bent and loose, her heart kicked up a notch.

Jack and Locke lifted the ruined door out of the way and peered inside. They were still for several long moments. "What do you see?" she asked, venturing closer. She was almost afraid to know, but neither could she help herself. Besides, if they were going to use it as a shelter, she was going to have to find out eventually.

"Take a look," Locke said, shifting out of the way so she could have room.

She shot a brief glance at Jack, still wondering exactly what he'd meant when he said they were going to have a "Locke problem." He hadn't elaborated, only asked for her to have his back. And while she may have said that she would, before she sided with him on this—if something was indeed wrong—she was definitely going to get more information. She wasn't going to follow him blindly.

She looked down, her eyes widening as she took in the void left by the door's removal. There was blackness, a dark void descending into the earth. She saw the ladder, broken off some ten or twenty feet down. "How far down does it go?" she murmured.

"Hard to say," Jack answered.

She looked around for a moment, searching. She spotted a large rock several feet to her left and retrieved it. "Hold the torch over the opening," she told Jack. "We'll drop this down and see what happens."

When the torch was in position, she let the rock go—and waited. And waited. Several seconds later—ten or fifteen, maybe—she thought she heard a muffled thud, but she wasn't sure. What she was sure of was that the light didn't penetrate deep enough to see where the rock had fallen.

She blew out a breath. "Well, I guess there's no way to tell what's down there except for going down there ourselves."

"And how do you propose to do that?" Jack asked. "That ladder is broken off a few feet down, and wherever the bottom is, it's obviously not within jumping distance."

"So we build a new ladder," she reasoned. "Some of these roots and branches are strong, but flexible enough that we can tie them together to form a ladder or rope extension."

"That's a good idea," Locke said from behind them. "We should start gathering branches so we can get started."

"I'm not so sure," Jack said.

"Well, what do you suggest we do, Jack? Unless you have somewhere else to hide forty people, we need to find out what's down there, and whether or not this is going to work," she said.

"Branches and roots are too risky," he said. "They could break apart too easily. They're not going to hold up long enough for forty people to make it down there. We need rope, actual rope, if someone is going to go down there."

"Where are we going to find rope?" she asked. "Everything we had went into building the raft."

"So we'll go back to the ship. The Black Rock. There has to be rope there."

"Jack, we don't have time," she said, feeling frustration begin to build. "You heard what Rousseau said. They're coming. We need to get everyone hidden as quickly as possible."

"Then we'd better get moving. We can be there and back in a few hours' time. We'll get some rope and have everyone hidden before the sun comes up." He stood up and brushed off his knees, his decision apparently made.

"And by then it could be too late," she argued.

"This is the safest way to handle it, Kate," he said. "If you don't like it, maybe you should go back and wait at the caves with the others."

She stared at him for a moment, trying not to feel like a child who'd just been scolded. And she wondered, not for the first time today, just what had soured Jack against her. She could feel Locke and Hurley watching the argument unfold and wondered vaguely who each of them would side with. Hurley, she was fairly certain, would side with Jack. But Locke was a wild card. He could go either way.

"I'll tell you what," she said finally. "You go to the Black Rock and look for rope. I'll stay here and start building my own."

"Not going to happen," Jack said with a shake of his head. "It's too dangerous."

"This is my decision, Jack," she insisted. "I'm sorry if you don't like it, but we're not going to agree on everything. I don't see what it can hurt to stay here and work on this while you go back to the Black Rock."

"Kate, you're not staying here while everyone else goes back."

"What?" she said, sensing the direction he was headed and not liking it one bit. "You think if you leave me alone here I'm somehow going to destroy the hatch and put everyone in even more danger?"

"I think you're going to get yourself killed if you try to climb down there with tied-together tree branches."

"Well, that's my risk to take, isn't it?"

"Kate, this isn't going to happen. Now, I suggest we get moving. We don't have a lot of time."

She stepped closer, lowering her voice so that he was the only one who could hear her. "This is about before, isn't it?"

"Before what?"

"Before the crash. It's about me being on the plane with the marshal. It's why you agreed to let me come on the hike to the Black Rock in the first place, and it's why you don't want to leave me alone here now. You want to keep an eye on me," she finished bitterly, batting several stray wisps of hair out of her face.

"Can you blame me, Kate? I mean, tell me what you've done to earn my trust. Maybe I missed it."

"Do you remember the day after the marshal died, Jack? You told me that the past didn't matter. That we all got a chance to start over. What happened to that?"

"I said that before I knew what you were capable of."

She frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Michael's poisoning."

Her face closed down, leaving a blank mask. "I told you, I didn't do that."

"I know you didn't mean to poison Michael," he said. "It was meant for Jin."

"I didn't—"

"You may not have put the stuff in the water, but you gave Sun the idea, didn't you? You took advantage of her grief and gave her a way to keep Jin close, which, if it had worked, would have conveniently left an open spot on the raft."

"That's ridiculous," Kate spat. "I didn't take advantage of her. I was trying to help her."

"And why would you do that?"

"Because she's the only person who hasn't judged me. She's the only person who's actually given me that second chance you talked about."

"And the thought of an open spot on the raft never crossed your mind?"

She turned her back on him, frustrated beyond belief and tired of the whole conversation, the whole fight. She brushed past Locke, heading to the spot in the trees where she'd left her pack. He was never going to give her a second chance, not truly, and damned if she was going to keep butting her head up against a brick wall. She'd been on her own for a long time; she could survive that way again.

"Kate, where are you going?" Jack asked from behind her.

She retrieved her pack and slung it over her shoulders. Stepping out of the trees and back into the dim light of the clearing, she faced him again. "Tell me something, Jack. You insist on knowing all of my secrets, on knowing every wrong thing I've done in my life, but what do I know about you? What secrets have you shared about yourself?"

"I'm not the one who was on the plane with a U.S. Marshal."

"It has to work both ways, Jack. I'm not going to share my whole life with you, get judged until the end of eternity, and get nothing in return. And until you realize that, I'm done."

"Done? With what?"

"With this. Everything. I've survived on my own for a long time, and I'll do it again."

"Do you know how ridiculous that is?" Jack asked, exasperation in his tone. "Going out there alone, completely unprotected? We have no idea who or what is out there."

"I'm not going to trail you around everywhere, never being allowed to have a hand in any decisions. This is my choice, my decision, and I'm leaving. Good luck at the Black Rock."

Before he could say another word, she turned and started down the path that would lead to the caves. She needed to refill her water bottles before she went...wherever it was she decided to go.

She heard Jack and Locke arguing, but she ignored them, and as she put more distance between them, the voices faded until there was nothing left. It was only when she was alone—completely alone—that she acknowledged that this might not be the smartest thing she'd ever done. But there was no way she was turning back. There may have been occasional sparks with Jack, moments when the friendship between them was light and easy, but it wasn't enough. She wasn't going to put up with the judgment and be held back just so she could wait for another one of those moments. She'd rather take a chance of making it on her own.

By the time the caves were in sight, she was shaking. She supposed it was a combination of anger and fear, of nerves and uncertainty. She'd been moving faster than she should have, expending more energy than was wise. But she couldn't seem to stop herself. Her emotions were perilously close to the edge, and she was determined not to lose her cool.

Any more than she already had.

Everyone looked up when she entered the caves and headed for the water, but she ignored them. She set her pack down and pulled out an empty water bottle. She began to fill it.

"Did they get it open?" someone asked.

"Did you find dynamite?"

"Will we all fit?"

"They're working on it," she said with a half-smile, trying to reassure them as best she could.

"What does that mean?"

"How much longer are we going to have to wait?"

"Hopefully not long," she said, finishing the last of her three bottles and taking a swig before she capped it and replaced it in her pack. She nodded and walked across the expanse of the caves, heading for the path that would lead her back to the beach.

She nodded at Sun as she passed the quiet Korean woman, who sat near Claire and the baby. She saw Sayid, who was sitting next to Shannon, stand up, but she ignored him, heading down the path and into the trees.

Several yards in his voice stopped her. "Kate."

With a sigh, she turned around and faced him.

"What happened?" he asked as he approached her.

"They got the hatch door open, but they don't know what's inside yet."

"So you found this Black Rock Danielle spoke of? It was real?"

"Yeah, it was real. But it wasn't exactly a rock. It was a ship."

"What do you mean, a ship?"

"It looked like a slave ship, or maybe some sort of pirate ship. But it was right there, in the middle of the jungle. As soon as we found it, Rousseau left. We got...we got the dynamite back to the hatch, but not before..."

"Before what?"

"Arzt is dead. The dynamite was unstable, and he had a stick of it in his hands..."

Sayid took a moment to absorb this. "And you don't know what's inside the hatch?"

She shook her head. "There's some sort of pit or well. We have no idea how deep it is. There's a ladder, but it's broken off ten or twenty feet down. They're trying to figure out a way to get down there and see what it is."

"And why did you come back? Why aren't you still at the hatch? Surely it can't just be for water."

She sighed, her lips twisting into a hint of a sardonic grin. "Jack and I had a falling out," she said. "He thinks I shouldn't be left alone now because I was on the plane with the marshal, and I disagree. So I left."

"And what do you plan on doing now?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "I'm going to head to the beach and try to get some sleep for a few hours, and if nothing has happened by morning, I guess I'll start hiking."

"Why don't you just stay at the caves? You would be safer close to everyone else."

"Thanks, but if I did that, I'd just be waiting around for Jack's next order."

He regarded her intently for several minutes, and she had to fight not to squirm under his scrutiny. "Wait here," he said, and took off at a jog before she could respond. He was back in just a moment, and she was surprised when he handed her one of the marshal's guns.

"You sure this is a good idea?" she asked. "Jack's going to be mad if he finds out you gave me a gun."

"Jack gave them to me for safekeeping. It is my decision."

"Okay," she said with a short nod, taking the gun from him. Its weight was solid, as much of a reassurance as she could expect.

"Good luck," Sayid said.

"To you too." She nodded, smiled a ghost of a smile, then took off on the path to the beach.

She supposed she shouldn't be surprised Sayid hadn't tried harder to talk her out of leaving. After all, he'd done the same thing. After he'd tortured Sawyer, he'd exiled himself. She'd been dismayed, but she hadn't tried to stop him. Maybe he was simply returning the favor.

She carefully picked her way over rocks, roots, and other debris. She hadn't brought a torch with her, and she didn't have a flashlight, so she was navigating by a combination of instinct, caution, and a faint glimmer of moonlight. She kept a hand on the gun, which she'd tucked into the front of her waistband. She wasn't going to be caught unprepared.

It took her probably twice the normal time to make it from the caves to the beach. She wondered, as she stepped from dirt to sand, if Jack was on his way to the Black Rock again, or if Locke had convinced him to try something else. What, beyond her root and branch idea, she didn't know. But they'd begun quietly arguing as she'd walked away.

There was an eerie quality to the deserted beach that hadn't been there before. She shivered in spite of herself. Shaking her head, and taking a fortifying breath, she crossed the sand to her makeshift shelter.

She lowered her pack to the ground and worked the kinks out of her shoulders. She heard the building and breaking of the waves, and she wondered how the raft crew was doing. Wondered how Sawyer was doing.

She'd looked for him before the hike. She hadn't been sure what she'd say when she found him, but she'd felt compelled to seek him out nonetheless. But he hadn't been there. And then she'd seen Jack preparing to leave, and she hadn't had anymore time to look for him.

Too bad nothing was turning out as she'd hoped.

She glanced over at Sawyer's shelter. It was strange, knowing he wasn't around to snark or make caustic quips at someone else's expense. He wasn't there to barter with for whatever she might need.

And he wasn't there to make her feel a little less lonely, even when they had no contact. He'd been right that night they'd played I Never. He didn't belong any more than she did. The difference was, he'd bought his ticket off the island and she was still here, and a lot more alone than she'd been before.

Not questioning her motives—and too tired to argue with herself—she picked up her pack and moved it over to Sawyer's shelter. She lay down in the sand and made herself as comfortable as she could. She closed her eyes with a sigh, her hand still resting on the handle of the gun. If The Others—whoever they were—came, she'd be ready for them.

Her last thought as she drifted off to sleep was a repetition of the three words she'd uttered over another campfire.

_Be safe, Sawyer._


	3. Lost and Found

Chapter 3: Lost and Found

It was still dark when Kate's eyes flashed open. She spent a disoriented moment trying to figure out what she was doing in the sand. Hadn't she just been at the hatch? Weren't they trying to get inside?

She remembered in the same instant a strange, foreign sound froze her in place.

She lay perfectly still, only her eyes moving back and forth as she tried to place the strange noise she was hearing. It seemed to be some distance off-but wait. Was it coming closer? Was it a storm rolling in? Was it thunder she could just barely discern over the rolling of the waves?

It came closer still. And then she knew.

"Oh, my God," she breathed.

Suddenly she was a flurry of movement, instinct warning her to hide, to conceal herself in the trees. Grabbing her pack, she scrambled backward, pushing back the flap of the tarp and sliding out. She dragged the pack after her and let the tarp flap closed again.

She nearly panicked as something bright flashed for an instant, then was gone. Some latent instinct kicked in, probably developed during her years on the run. She dropped her pack and cautiously pulled the flap of the tarp back. Reaching forward with a single hand, she methodically disturbed the sand where she'd been sleeping, erasing as best she could any signs of her presence.

She pulled her hand back and let the tarp fall back into place an instant before the flash came again, almost right on top of her. She dropped to her belly, hoping her shadow hadn't been visible through the tarp.

The flash she'd seen was a search light, the strange sound the chug of a motor. But it wasn't coming ashore, and nobody was calling out to anyone who might remain on the beach.

Instinct warned her that this was not the rescue everyone had been hoping for, and that if she wanted to remain safe-as relative a term as that might have become-she should remain hidden.

The light came back, flashing over Sawyer's shelter again. She didn't move. In fact, she scarcely breathed. Did whoever was out there know she was here? Had her quick disguise of he presence not been enough? She squeezed her eyes shut, dizzy and a little sick from the adrenaline slicing through her.

The light moved away, the sound of the motor becoming less distinct as it moved down the beach.

For long moments she didn't move. That definitely hadn't been rescue. If it had been, they would have stopped and explored the signs of habitation on the beach. But they hadn't. They'd been searching for something.

When she was sure they were gone, she let go of the gun-which she hadn't even realized she'd been holding-and slung the straps of her pack over her shoulders. Taking the gun again and staying low, she dashed into the trees.

She ducked behind a large tree and leaned against it. What the hell was she supposed to do now? It was clear to her that she couldn't stay at the beach; it was far too exposed. But where should she go? To the caves, to warn everyone that she'd seen something? But what would she tell them? She hadn't really _seen_ anything, except a flash of light. Would they think she was crazy? Would it be a revisiting of the night Claire had woken up screaming, claiming someone was trying to hurt her baby?

Should she go back to the hatch, warn Jack and Locke that someone was out there? But what if they weren't at the hatch? Would she be able to find the Black Rock in the dark, having been there only once?

Or should she simply run, vanishing into the trees as Danielle had done?

A branch snapped several yards behind her.

She whirled, gasping, the gun held out in front of her. Her eyes scanned the trees, but she saw nothing. She felt it though; felt certain someone or something was out there.

She backed away slowly, taking one quiet step back at a time. She couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. She eyed the entrance to the path that would lead her to the caves. To hell with this, she thought. She wasn't going to wait for whatever was out there to come back. She'd go back to the caves, and if Jack tried to order her around, she'd decide then whether to follow him or not.

She'd taken a few steps down the path when the brush began shaking and rustling. Her mouth went dry, and when two sections of the brush began to part, she turned and fled.

Away from the caves.

* * *

The sky was an angry gray, dark clouds roiling and breaking open to let loose a flood of rain. Not that they were lacking in water.

The three men clung to their lifelines, ruined pieces of the raft that had given them hope an instant before threatening their lives. They'd survived the night, watching warily as the skies transformed from midnight black to a furious, threatening gray. They'd watched in silence as the fire finally died down, and then they'd been left in darkness, the only sound the soft lapping of the water as they contemplated whether or not they'd make it out of the water alive.

It was the first heavy raindrops that forced Sawyer back to consciousness. He'd been drifting in and out throughout the night, the pain alternately dragging him under and becoming so intense it brought him to wakefulness again. It had been a hellish few hours, made more miserable by the stiffness of his muscles, the pounding of his head and the wandering of his mind.

The loss of blood and accompanying pain had lowered his defenses, crumbled the wall he normally kept around himself. Not knowing whether he'd survive or not, there had been nothing to keep unwanted thoughts at bay. He'd spent much of the night-those bits of consciousness he could remember, anyway-flashing back on the past weeks on the island, on the events that had led him to this spot in the middle of the ocean.

The one thing he couldn't get out of his mind was her. Freckles. She wouldn't leave him alone. She was there, floating through his mind whether he liked it or not. But the images weren't the sexy ones that had occasionally peppered his dreams. Instead she taunted him, laughing as she passed by him to stand with Jack. And not just stand next to him. They were all over each other. The images slapped him in the face and refused to go away.

He shook his head, groaning when the movement jostled his shoulder. He didn't have any claim on Kate, had no reason to give a damn what she did with her time. And yet, somehow the dream-nightmare-images were like rubbing sandpaper on a fresh wound.

He squinted against the sting of the rain and stared out at the endless expanse of choppy sea. He figured it was time to face facts. There wasn't much chance of survival out here, and there never had been. The second the flames had flared to life on the deck of the raft, they'd been done for. Even if they knew which direction to swim, they were fifteen miles out. An impossible distance, even without a hole in his shoulder.

Jin murmured something suddenly, but Sawyer ignored him. He wondered how long it would take-how long they'd have to drift out here in the water before they'd start to fade into unconsciousness. Before it would end for good.

Jin's voice came back to him, louder this time, a hint of excitement underlying his tone. Sawyer tried to ignore him, but when Jin tapped his arm with a quick repetitive motion, Sawyer turned his head and opened his mouth to berate the man for bothering him.

The angry retort died on his lips. His eyes followed Jin's outstretched arm, and through the rain he saw...land.

He shook his head, trying to clear the rain from his eyes. He had to be hallucinating. There was no way he was actually seeing a slip of land on the horizon. Maybe he was getting a fever after all. He'd thought the coolness of the water was helping to keep a fever at bay, but apparently he'd been wrong. And yet...he blinked several times, and when he opened his eyes again, it was still there. "You're just dreamin'," he muttered. "It's a mirage."

"A mirage we all see?" Michael asked from the other side of him.

Sawyer turned, but Michael's gaze was firmly fixed on the horizon. The man had been so quiet, Sawyer had almost forgotten he'd been there. "That isn't a mirage, man," Michael said. "That's _land_."

Between Michael's sudden mood change and Jin's rapid-fire Korean, Sawyer was starting to get really irritated, more so than before, which surprised him, since he hadn't thought things could get any worse. Didn't they realize they were seeing things? "You're just seeing what you wanna see," he grumbled.

"Hey, believe what you want to believe, man," Michael said. "I see land, and I'm not waiting around any longer."

Sawyer watched as, still clutching his piece of driftwood with one arm, he began stroking toward the horizon. Jin tapped his arm and gestured toward Michael. "I'm tellin' you, he's crazy," Sawyer said.

But Jin was determined. Sawyer supposed he would be. After all, he had a wife to get back to. And Michael had his son. What did he have, he wondered. _Revenge_, a voice whispered. Hadn't he promised himself just a few hours ago that he was going to make those bastards pay? That he wasn't going to make it easy on them and simply die?

"All right, all right," he muttered. He shifted, drew his arm from around the driftwood to take a stroke-and immediately sank into the water. Choking on a mouthful of water, he pumped his legs and broke the surface. "Son of a bitch!"

He bit back a groan as pain ripped through him. Not only was his injured arm stiff as hell, but overnight the muscles in his good harm had stiffened from their unnatural position and nearly locked. Gingerly, gritting his teeth at the pins-and-needles sensation as blood flowed into his arm again.

Shit. This was going to be tougher than he'd thought. He was going to have to use his injured arm to hold on to the driftwood and his good arm to stroke through the water.

He raised his arm and took hold of the driftwood, keeping his shoulder as close to his body as he could. "All right," he told Jin. "Let's do this."

They stroked forward awkwardly, Jin's end often moving ahead, forcing him to slow down and match Sawyer's slower pace. Sawyer continually cursed under his breath, the pain fogging his vision. He felt like his shoulder was being ripped apart. The distant slip of land never vanished, no matter how many times he blinked, even seemed to move closer the longer they swam. The rain continued to pour down in sheets, but the mirage was always there.

Maybe it wasn't a mirage after all...

He nearly passed out twice on the seemingly endless swim. Jin kept urging him on, but he didn't get his final burst of energy until he looked up and saw Michael stagger out of the water and fall to his knees on a beach that definitely wasn't a mirage.

Biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, he adjusted his grip on the driftwood and stroked as hard as he could. The water shallowed as they neared the shore, and soon it was shallow enough that they could stand.

He let go of the driftwood and staggered to his feet, but almost immediately he fell to his knees. When he continued to fall forward, instinct brought his hands out to brace himself. The pain from the jarring of his wound blacked his vision. He fell face-first into the shallow water.

Without a word Jin took his good arm, slung it over his shoulder, and half-carried him up the beach. Sawyer coughed up his latest mouthful of water, and was only half-conscious when Jin laid him on the sand. He rolled onto his back, his eyes closed against the sting of the rain. They were on land again. What land, he didn't know. Clearly they'd drifted quite a distance during the long hours of the night, but it was entirely possible that this wasn't even the island they'd been on before.

But at the moment none of that mattered. At the moment, all he cared about was that there was finally solid ground beneath him. He let out a deep breath and was unconscious within seconds.

* * *

Kate stumbled and staggered through the jungle, every muscle in her body shaking. She had no idea where she was. She'd been moving for hours, blindly running away from whatever had been on the beach-if indeed anything had been there at all. More likely than not, it had been some kind of jungle animal that had been rustling around in that brush. There had been boar on the beach before. Maybe another one had ventured there looking for food.

But as much as she wanted to believe that it had only been a boar, there was some tiny corner of her mind that rejected the idea. So soon after the appearance of what had to have been some sort of small boat, hearing something rustling in the bushes struck her as a little too coincidental. Maybe the boat had seen her after all, then gone ashore a ways down the beach, its occupants making their way back to her. She shivered at the thought. Perhaps they were tracking her even now.

She gripped her gun in cold, stiff fingers. The rain had started a couple of hours ago, and she'd been soaked within seconds. But still, she hadn't stopped moving.

When she'd taken off, her first thought had been to circle back around and go for the caves. To warn everyone that something, or someone, was out there. But then it had occurred to her that if she went to the caves, she would be leading whoever was out there straight to everyone. So she'd kept heading in the opposite direction, putting as much distance between herself and the caves as she could. She wasn't going to put everyone in any more danger, before the raft crew even had a chance at success.

She wondered how far out they'd made it, and how they were fairing in the storm. She hoped they were all right.

But did she really hope they found rescue?

She'd asked herself the question several times since they'd left on the hike to the Black Rock, knowing that the raft would be launching shortly thereafter. After all, what awaited her once they were rescued? Either jail, or if she somehow managed to escape again, more time on the run. More loneliness, more guilt, more fear. But here on the island the specter of unknown peril constantly hung over their heads.

She'd been asking herself the question, but she didn't have an answer.

She stumbled and fell to her knees, the gun tumbling from her grip and landing a couple feet away. She crawled across the mucky ground and retrieved it, then braced herself on a narrow tree trunk and staggered to her feet. She leaned back against the tree and closed her eyes. She needed to rest, and she needed to eat something.

She tipped her head back and sighed. And then she heard the crack.

Her heart tripped, but it happened too fast for her to react. The tree trunk snapped and began to fall, and since she was leaning against it, she went with it. She let out a short shriek as she fell, landing hard on her side. But she didn't stop there, didn't lay still on the ground. It wasn't until she was falling, rolling, that she realized she'd been standing on the edge of a heavily-forested hillside. She rolled down the hill, trying to hold onto the gun, trying to protect her face.

She landed at the bottom of the hill with a thud, her breath leaving her in a rush. She curled onto her side, groaning as various aches and bruises began to make themselves known. Several moments later, when she started to breathe again, she cracked her eyes open. She saw the gun laying a few feet away from her, and became aware that she was lying on a bed of sand and weeds. So she'd found the beach again. But which part of the beach? How far would she have to walk, and in which direction, to find the camp again? If she could get back to the camp, she could easily get back to the caves.

She squinted against the sky, turning her head to avoid the sting of the rain. And at the hazy edges of her vision, she saw something. A dark shape, how far down the beach she couldn't tell. No wait...there wasn't just one. She turned her head slightly, and she saw two more. She squinted, rolling over and looking up. Her heart began pounding. It couldn't be. She had to be seeing things.

She stood up and rubbed a hand over her face, clearing the water away. She blinked several times, clearing her vision. And when she realized that she was indeed seeing the impossible, she took off at a run.


	4. The Reunion

Chapter 4: The Reunion

"Hey!" Kate shouted as she ran across the beach, toward a sight she shouldn't be seeing. It was impossible. It didn't make sense. And yet, there it was.

Michael looked up, his eyes widening as he saw her hurrying across the sand. He stood up and started toward her, meeting her halfway across the sand.

"Kate? What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice slightly dazed.

"Me? What's going on? What happened to the raft? What...?"

For the first time she looked over his shoulder and focused on the two other hazy shapes she'd noticed after her fall. Jin, sitting dejectedly in the sand, staring into the jungle. And Sawyer. Lying motionless in the sand, his shirt bunched and tied around his shoulder, streaks of blood criss-crossing his arm. "Oh, my God," she breathed. She watched, waited for him to move, but it didn't happen.

She didn't realize she'd ducked around Michael and run to Sawyer's side until she was already there. "Is he..." She glanced up at Michael, then quickly back down at Sawyer. She thought she discerned a slight rise-and-fall of his chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, shaken by her reaction to the thought of him...no. She wasn't even going to think it.

She stood up again and faced Michael. "What happened?" was all she could think to say.

Michael ran a hand over his face, brushing the rain away. He blew out a breath, and it was impossible to miss the haunted look in his eyes. And then Kate realized what else had been bothering her about this whole scene, besides finding them here in the first place. "Where's Walt?"

"There was, uh...we saw something on the radar screen last night. It had almost moved out of range when I shot off the flare gun..."

He turned and looked out at the water, unable for a moment to continue. Kate opened her mouth to encourage him, then thought better of it. She watched him for a moment, then turned and looked down at Sawyer. She could see now that he was breathing, but he was just so still. It was scaring her.

"This boat showed up," Michael said suddenly, still looking out at the water. "Some old fishing boat or something. We thought we were all saved. But they...they weren't there to rescue us."

"What did they want?" Kate asked quietly, dread pooling in her stomach. Walt was gone, Sawyer was seriously injured...

"They wanted my boy," Michael whispered raggedly. "They said...they were going to have to take my boy."

Kate found herself fighting tears at the raw anguish in his tone. She'd lost people she loved before. She knew the pain, the hopelessness.

She turned back toward the trees, thinking that it didn't make sense. What would anyone want with Walt? And how had they found him? Had they been tracking the raft themselves, or had they just happened across it? Had they been watching the camp the entire time, deciding for whatever twisted reason that they wanted Walt?

"You don't believe me," Michael said.

She turned back around. "I do believe you," she said quietly, thinking of the boat that had been searching the beach last night. Was it the same boat that had taken Walt? Had he already been on board when it passed her? "I was on the beach last night when a boat of some kind came by."

"What? Are you serious? Did you see anything? Where did it go?"

The eagerness in his voice tore at her. "It was flashing a searchlight across the beach," she said. "I didn't actually see it, because I took cover behind Sawyer's shelter. I could hear the motor running, but that's it. As soon as it headed further down the beach, I took off."

"Well, which way were you going? If I get back to the beach, I can head that way and find them. I can get Walt back."

"That's the thing," Kate said. "I don't know. It was dark, and I got turned around in the jungle. I have no idea which direction I was going."

After a moment, Michael shook his head. "It doesn't matter. This is an island, right? If I follow along the beach, eventually I'll find it."

Suddenly determined, he did a couple of stretches and turned to leave.

"Wait!" Kate called out. "I need to know what happened to Sawyer. How bad is he?" If her voice trembled just a bit, she ignored it. It was just the shock of finding the three men here on the island, nothing more.

Michael stopped, realizing he'd only told half of the story. "He had a gun with him, Sawyer did. When those freaks said they wanted Walt"—he took a deep breath and shook his head—"Sawyer tried to shoot them, but he didn't get his shot off in time. They shot him, they grabbed my boy, then they blew up the raft."

Kate stared at him for a moment, feeling the echoes of their terror in the air around them. "How did you get back to the beach?"

Michael shook his head. "We must have drifted this way during the night."

"When did Sawyer pass out?"

"Soon as he hit the beach, I think. I don't think he's moved since we got here."

Kate absorbed the news, fear trickling through her. If he'd gone into the water after being shot, there was no way to tell how much blood he'd lost. No way to tell just how bad he was.

"I gotta go now," Michael said woodenly. "I've got to find my boy."

"Take this," she said, reaching into her pack and pulling out a half-full bottle of water. She tossed it to him, then added, "If I were you, I'd stay close to the beach, but inside the tree line. There's less chance you'll be seen that way."

"Yeah, thanks," he said. "I hope Sawyer's okay."

Kate watched as he turned and started down the beach. She wanted to call him back, to say that they should all stick together. It wasn't safe out there alone. But his son was missing, abducted by men who wanted who-knew-what from him, and she couldn't bring herself to call him back. She thought about the gun, which she'd tucked into the back of her waistband, but she couldn't give it up. Not with Sawyer lying here unconscious.

By the time she turned and knelt beside him the rain had stopped. She shrugged out of her pack and wondered what to do next. She didn't know anything about treating gunshot wounds. They needed Jack. He'd know what to do, know what the right course of treatment was.

But she had no idea where Jack was. She had no idea if he'd made it to the Black Rock and back to the hatch, because she hadn't been able to keep her cool long enough to find out.

Jin spoke for the first time since she'd found them, his words lost to her but not the urgency behind them. "Are you talking about Sun?" she asked. "I saw her last night. She was fine."

She gave him a small, encouraging smile, then turned back to Sawyer with a sigh. She needed to know how bad he was, and there was only one way to do that. She needed to get a look at his shoulder. If she was going to have any chance of helping him, she had to know the extent of his injuries.

She started unwrapping the tattered shirt, gritting her teeth and trying to jostle him as little as possible. He groaned softly and she jumped, her heart in her throat, her hands shaking.

"Sawyer?" she murmured. "Can you hear me?"

She thought she saw his eyelids twitch, but he didn't respond, didn't wake up. She closed her eyes briefly before turning back to his shoulder. He must be dreaming, she thought, and decided that it would be better if he remained unconscious while she was looking at his shoulder. She was already having a hard enough time; she didn't need to be fighting him too.

She unwrapped the last of the tattered pieces of his shirt and let them fall away. His shoulder and upper arm were streaked with dried or drying blood, and there was a neat round hole where the bullet had torn through his flesh. She pressed her fist against her mouth, fighting a sudden wave of nausea. She'd never been very good around blood, but she told herself she had to do this. She had to help him.

She looked up at Jin. "Did the bullet go all the way through?" she asked, pointing to Sawyer's shoulder, "or is it still inside of him?" She didn't know much about medicine, but she knew enough to know that it was better if the bullet went all the way through him.

"Help me lift him up," she said to Jin. "Just enough so I can see." By gesture she showed him what she wanted to do, and as one they lifted him. Kate jumped when he groaned again, but she kept her cool and dipped her head for a look.

The back of his shoulder was also smeared with blood, a small dark hole indicating that the bullet had indeed exited through him. She nodded to Jin, and they gently laid Sawyer back on the sand. Okay, so she knew how bad it was now. It was a through-and-through gunshot wound to his shoulder, and for the moment at least it had stopped bleeding. The problem was that she had no idea what to do next.

Sawyer groaned again. Her head whipped around, her gaze glued to him as his eyelids fluttered. "Sawyer? Can you hear me?"

"Freckles?" he muttered, his voice thick with exhaustion and pain. "The hell you doin' on the raft?"

"You're not on the raft anymore," she said quietly.

His eyes opened suddenly and he tried to sit up. She pressed against his shoulder—his good shoulder—and tried to get him to stay still. "You're going to make it worse," she said.

"Ain't gonna get any worse."

"If you keep jerking around like that it's going to split back open and you'll bleed to death."

"That's my problem, ain't it?"

She pulled her hands away as he sat up and looked at his shoulder. She saw him hold back a wince. Of course he was going to be stubborn. She sighed. She'd probably never convince him to go to Jack for help. He'd do whatever he pleased, however he pleased. It was going to take more than a few words to convince him to see things her way.

She pulled out a water bottle and handed it to him, then gave the other one to Jin. "Be careful with them," she said. "They're all I have."

"And you can't just get more?"

"I...don't know which way it is back to the caves," she admitted reluctantly.

He looked at her, an eyebrow raised. "You don't know where the caves are? How the hell did that happen?"

She shrugged, pulling a gray T-shirt out of her pack and ripping it apart to rebandage his shoulder. "You should keep that covered," she said by way of explanation. She motioned Jin to help her, and when Sawyer tried to jerk out of the way she muttered, "Would you just hold still? It's going to get worse if you don't keep it covered."

His lips quirked. "You're not gonna tell me what happened?" he asked, gritting his teeth only a little as she and Jin rebandaged his shoulder.

"My secrets don't do real well in your hands."

"Aw, come on, Freckles. You gonna hold that against me? Thought you of all people would understand."

"Me of all people?"

"I was just doin' what I had to do."

She met his eyes briefly, then stood up and walked a few paces down the beach. She wanted to be mad at him, but the hell of it was, she _did_ understand. If the situation had been reversed, she couldn't say she wouldn't have done the exact same thing.

"I was on the beach last night when a boat came by. It was flashing a searchlight, and I think it may have seen me before I could take cover. A few minutes later I heard something in the brush and I took off. I got turned around in the dark. I only found you guys by accident."

"That don't make sense, Freckles. What were you doing on the beach when you should have been at the hatch with everyone else?"

"It doesn't matter anymore. Now, we need to try and get back to the caves."

"Good luck with that," Sawyer said, and started a slow amble down the beach, his steps shaking a little.

"Where are you going?" Kate called out.

"I'm gonna find that kid!" he shouted.

"And how do you plan on doing that? You have no weapons and you can barely walk." She jogged to catch up with him, Jin close behind her.

"So I'll find a big stick," he muttered crossly.

"Sawyer, that's ridiculous. Even if you did manage to find them, they have guns. How are you going to stop them with a stick?"

"I'll work it out."

She opened her mouth to argue again, but he cut her off. "You got a better idea, Freckles?"

She took the gun from her waistband and held it at her side. "Sayid gave it to me last night," she said. He reached for it, but she jerked her arm back, then tucked it into her waistband again. "We're going to do this my way," she said.

"I don't need your help, Freckles. Take the damn gun. Go find the good doctor at the hatch and live happily ever after."

Kate rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored him. "The first thing we need to do is try and find the caves again. We're not going to last long out here with less than two bottles of water." She worked her shoulders and massaged her left side. Bruises and stiffness from her fall were starting to make themselves known. "Then we'll head for the dark territory. I think that's where we'll be most likely to find them."

"Dark territory? What does that mean?"

"That's what Rousseau called it. It's where we found the Black Rock."

"So you found it. Did Captain Know-It-All have fun with the dynamite?"

She looked at him for a moment, then shook her head. "Arzt is dead," she said shortly. "We need to get moving."

"You don't get to run this show just 'cause you've got a gun," Sawyer grumbled.

"I'm _running the show_ because I think we've already established that I'm a better tracker than you are," she said.

"I ain't huntin' boar this time, Sweetheart."

"You're right. You're hunting something a lot smarter and more dangerous than boar. So you don't have to admit that you need my help, but we both know you do."

Not wanting to argue any further, she simply turned and started into the trees. Jin stood watching her, then watching Sawyer, but eventually turned and followed Kate. After a moment, Sawyer muttered a curse and caught up with them.

They headed into the jungle, knowing where they wanted to go, or at least where Kate wanted to go, but not sure how to get there. Kate did her best to find an even path that Sawyer could handle, at the same time watching out for any signs of life. All she saw were occasional animal tracks, but she didn't think they'd be lucky much longer. The Others were out there, and they couldn't avoid them forever.


	5. The Path to Fear

Chapter Five: The Path to Fear

Sawyer gritted his teeth, trying not to stumble over the uneven ground. His shoulder hurt like a bitch, and it was making it hard for him to concentrate on where he was going. Freckles kept plunging ahead, acting like she knew where she was going. He was having a hard time keeping up, but damned if he was going to say anything. He'd go with her as far as the caves, stock up on water and find a weapon, then he was going to find the kid.

And he was going to take pleasure in finding the bastards who'd done this to him and making them pay.

He looked up as Kate shrugged out of her pack and dropped it on the ground, reaching up to rub her shoulders. "Let's take a break," she said.

"Run out of steam?"

"I thought we could use something to eat." She pointed upward, and he saw some kind of fruit hanging from the branches of the tree she'd stopped beneath.

Admitting—to himself—that he _was_ hungry, he sank down to the ground and leaned back against a tree. The rough bark scratched his back, but he ignored it. He sighed deeply, enjoying a bird's-eye view of Kate's ass as she began climbing the tree. If he wasn't so damn tired, he'd make some smart-ass comment, try to get some of her righteous anger brewing. It'd be a lot more fun arguing with her than just trudging aimlessly through the jungle.

He figured they'd been hiking for three, maybe four hours now, though it seemed like a hell of a lot longer. They'd conserved their water, not knowing when they'd find more, but still they were down to about half a bottle between the three of them. It didn't help that he and Jin had both swallowed several mouthfuls of salty sea water last night.

Kate had made it about ten or fifteen feet up in the tree and was bracing herself against a thick branch, reaching out and snagging pieces of fruit from further out. She stuck each piece in her bag, stopping when she had about a dozen.

He watched as she leaned back against the tree trunk and wiped sweat off her brow. She looked down at them, then climbed halfway back down and dangled her pack. "Here," she said. "Take it."

Jin hurried over and took the pack, and they watched as Kate began climbing...back up the tree.

"The hell you doin', Freckles?" he called out.

"I'm going to see if I can see anything!" she shouted, sticking close to the heavy trunk and reaching up for higher branches to boost herself up.

"So you're admittin' we're lost?"

"We were lost to begin with," he thought he heard her say.

"That's just great," he muttered, and though there was no way she could have heard him, she shouted back, "I didn't hear you suggesting any other way to go."

Huffing out a breath, amused against his will, he watched as she climbed higher. The branches swayed under her weight, a few leaves floating to the ground, but she didn't stop. He held his breath as she nearly disappeared in the leaves. He caught occasional glimpses of her as the upper branches shook. It was a fairly tall tree, the branches less stable the higher she went. His heart thudded dully, picturing her falling and breaking her neck.

He held his breath, his pain momentarily forgotten as he watched her edge out away from the tree's trunk. Her feet slid along one branch as she held onto one above her with both hands. She made it to the middle of the branch and stopped. The branches swayed precariously.

She took one hand off the branch she was holding onto and pushed a couple higher branches out of the way. She strained to see above them, and to his disbelief, she began lightly bouncing on the branch, boosting herself up, then down, then up again.

"You're gonna get yourself killed!" he shouted up at her.

"I think I see something!"

Adjusting her single-handed grip on the upper branch, she bounced again, boosting herself higher than before.

Then he heard the crack.

* * *

Kate froze. The branch she was holding onto—the one keeping her upright—had just cracked. Not all the way through, but she was afraid that if she moved an inch she'd plummet to the ground. And as far up as she'd gone, the results wouldn't be pretty.

She glanced up. The crack was halfway down the branch, three-quarters of the way through the thickness. It wouldn't take much to snap it. She heard Sawyer and Jin shouting something at her, but she ignored them. She took a deep breath. If she slowly edged along the branch, she'd be able to grab the piece still securely attached to the tree. She could do this. She'd climbed hundreds of trees before. This was no big deal, she kept repeating. No big deal.

She moved her feet an inch, not daring to put her other hand back on the branch for balance. One inch, then another. The branches shook and swayed as she fought to keep her balance and put as little strain on them as possible. She only had about two feet to go. Just two more feet and she'd be able to climb down safely.

She moved again, and the branch snapped.

She screamed as she fell, reaching out and grabbing the branch she'd been standing on purely by instinct. She caught hold of it with one hand, swinging back and forth before reaching up and catching it with her other hand. After a seemingly endless moment, she stopped swinging and was still.

Squeezing her eyes shut and taking a deep breath, she released her grip with one hand and swung herself forward, toward the trunk. The branch dipped lower, bending but not yet breaking. "Come on," she murmured under her breath. "Come on, come on." Her feet swung back and forth beneath her, searching for another branch to stand on, but she couldn't find one.

She swung one arm in front of the other, then stopped, waiting for her body to stop swinging and the branch to stop shaking. It was just like the monkey bars, she told herself. All she had to do was swing one, maybe two more times, and she'd be able to reach the trunk. She'd be safe.

Taking a deep breath, she leaned back, then swung forward as hard as she could, reaching out and catching the trunk. She grabbed it with both arms and held on for dear life as the branch she'd been hanging from broke off and fell away.

For several long moments she clung to the tree, her eyes closed, her breathing heavy and erratic. Only after she felt a little more under control did she look down to find a foothold below her. With shaking limbs she climbed down, finally dropping down to the ground and sinking back against the trunk. She leaned her head back with a sigh and closed her eyes again.

"That was the stupidest damn thing I've ever seen," Sawyer grumbled.

"I'm fine," she said.

"Dumb luck."

She cracked her eyes open and looked over at him. "Is that your way of saying you were worried about me?"

Not waiting for him to answer—or maybe she was just afraid of what his answer would be—she reached for her pack and pulled out a piece of fruit. She wasn't even sure what it was, but it was something to eat, and that's all she cared about. "There's a break in the canopy a couple miles that way," she said, pointing. "I think it might be the caves."

"So if the caves are that way, which way is it to this dark territory you been talking about?"

She shook her head. "We need to go to the caves first."

He glared at her. "You ain't even gonna tell me which direction it is?"

"I'm not an idiot. As soon as I tell you where it is, you're going to run off and get yourself killed."

"And why do you care about that?"

She met his gaze, unable for several moments to tear her eyes away. She wasn't about to answer him, even if she had an answer to give. There were all kinds of power, and she wasn't going to let him have that emotional power over her. It would give him too much of an advantage. Finally she looked away, tossing the remains of her fruit into a large bush and standing up to stretch. She kept herself in good shape—it had been a necessity at times to literally outrun the authorities—but the combination of running through the jungle, her fall down the hill, and now the stress of climbing and nearly falling out of the tree were taking their toll on her. She was right at the edge of her limits, and didn't know how much further she could go.

But she wasn't about to tell anyone. Not only did they need to get back to the caves for water, and to see if Jack had left behind any antibiotics that could help Sawyer, but she was also determined to reunite Jin with Sun. She knew from conversations with Sun that she truly loved her husband, and that his leaving on the raft had torn her apart. And now, she must be scared to death, Kate thought, to have no idea what was happening to him. To have no way of knowing if he was still safely on the raft, or if something had gone wrong.

She looked over at Jin as he scrubbed his hands over his face, and she vowed to herself that she would do whatever it took to bring them back together. She might not have admitted it to Jack, but the thought of an open spot on the raft _had_ occurred to her when she suggested that Sun put the poison in Jin's water. Of course it had. But her motives hadn't been completely selfish. She'd seen the love in Sun's eyes and had been compelled to try and help her. But it had backfired, leading to her blowup with Jack and her rash decision to go off on her own.

Of course, she thought, her rash decision had also inadvertently led her to Sawyer, Jin, and Michael.

She reached out a hand to help Sawyer back up, but he waved it away and grumbled under his breath as he got to his feet on his own. She tried not to think about how much his shoulder must be hurting. She wished she knew something about plants, something about herbal remedies that might help him. Sun would know, if they could manage to find her.

She wasn't going to think about why she was so concerned about how Sawyer was feeling. That would just open a door she wasn't ready to go through.

As they started off, each of them taking a swig from the water bottle, it came to her again. That feeling of being watched, the uncomfortable sensation of hidden eyes crawling over her skin. As casually as she could she looked around, scanning the jungle for any sign of another person watching them. She didn't see anything, but the feeling persisted. Just an animal, she told herself. It was just some animal hiding in the brush, watching them pass. The Others weren't out there, waiting for the best moment to strike.

She rested her hand on the butt of her gun, just for reassurance.

Apparently Sawyer noticed her action. "What's going on?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head. "Nothing."

"Don't lie to me, Freckles."

She glanced back at him. "It just felt like someone was watching us, is all."

She felt more than noticed him glance from side to side. And it could have been her imagination, but she thought he might have taken a step closer to her. "I don't see anything."

"You can think I'm paranoid if you want," she said in a hushed voice, hurrying along the narrow path. If someone or something _was_ out there, she wasn't eager to have a confrontation here, when they were boxed in by vegetation on either side. She wanted open space, a direction to run if they had to.

A gust of wind swept through the jungle, and Kate looked up through a break in the canopy to see that in the short time since she'd climbed out of the tree, clouds had rolled in across the sky. Another storm was coming. She remembered what Arzt had said, that they were nearing monsoon season. She wondered how long it would last, how bad the storms would get. The rain here already tended to come down heavily; she couldn't imagine how much worse it could be. Would the rains come heavier, the winds faster? If she made it back to the beach, would she find the camp washed out by the tides?

She shook her head, telling herself not to borrow trouble. She had enough of it already.

She shivered in spite of herself. The day had started out warm, edging toward hot, but the wind was bringing a chill into the jungle's interior. Something told her that this storm was going to be a bad one. She wondered if they'd be able to keep moving through it, or if they'd have to take shelter until it passed. She hoped for everyone's sakes that they could keep moving, while another part of her knew that if they didn't take a break, get some rest for a few hours, they'd burn out and be physically unable to continue.

She looked up at the sky again, squinting as the rains came suddenly. She wiped a hand across her face and quickened her steps even more as the brush thinned out. They were almost there. She'd been right. Those quick glimpses she'd gotten while up in the tree _had_ been the caves. Her heart sped up, but she didn't celebrate yet. They may have reached the shelter of the caves, but what worried her was the sense of abandonment hanging in the air.

A shiver crawled up her spine, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck. She glanced back at Sawyer, who was staring ahead as the outer walls of the caves revealed themselves. There were tight lines around his mouth, from fighting the pain in his arm, she assumed. He wasn't paying attention to her. She turned forward again, moving the gun from the back of her waistband to the front, within easy reach. They left the cover of the trees and came around the side of the rock into the mostly-open mouth of the caves.

"What the...?"


	6. Ghost Town

Chapter Six: Ghost Town

"What happened here?" Kate murmured to herself, her eyes scanning the expanse of the caves, the bags and suitcases spread haphazardly across the ground. No wonder the air had felt abandoned. It seemed as though it had been...literally.

"Looks like they went runnin'," Sawyer said.

_For their lives_, Kate added to herself. But what had caused them to run? What...or who? Had the Others found them, discovered the path to the caves and come upon the castaways? If indeed that _was_ the Others she'd heard behind her on the beach last night. Not that they couldn't have come from a totally different direction.

And then there was that thing, the monster or whatever it was. It had attacked them yesterday, and Locke in particular. Maybe it had decided it wasn't finished.

She shook her head, realizing how crazy she sounded. And yet...she knew something was out there.

The most likely explanation was that everyone had left their things behind in an effort to get to the hatch as quickly as possible. At least she hoped so.

She shrugged out of her pack and reached inside for the empty water bottle. She handed it to Jin as he passed her on his way to the waterfall with the other bottle, then picked her way through the scattered luggage where Jack had gathered all of the medical supplies. Things were knocked from their makeshift shelves and scattered around.

She frowned, kneeling down and picking up several bottles of pills. It didn't seem as though this stuff had been accidentally knocked over in someone's haste to run. It looked as though it had been deliberately swept and scattered around. And come to think of it...

She glanced behind her and noticed that, indeed, many of the bags and suitcases were open, clothes spilling out of them. There was no way that wasn't deliberate. But who had done it? And why?

She saw Sawyer pawing through one of the bags. "What are you doing?" she called out over the din of the rain.

"Tryin' to find something that fits. All my shit's at the bottom of the ocean."

She watched him move on to another bag. She'd been ignoring—or at least trying to ignore—the fact that he hadn't been wearing a shirt. There were other things she needed to worry about. She shouldn't be spending her time contemplating some crazy, inappropriate attraction.

She gathered all the pill bottles she could find and stared at them. She had no idea which ones were the right ones. She knew almost nothing about medicine. "What was the name of the medication Jack gave you before?" she asked Sawyer. "For your arm. What was it called?"

"How the hell should I know?" he muttered, struggling into a plain black T-shirt he'd found. "He gave me the pills, I took them."

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She stared at the bottles a minute longer, but nothing occurred to her. Jack had said something once, mentioned the names of a couple antibiotics he'd found, but they remained just beyond her memory.

The storm continued to gain intensity. The rocky overhang largely protected them from the downpour, but gusts of wind occasionally whipped through to them. Kate got pelted with a burst of rain and stood up, wiping the droplets from the side of her face.

She went still, frowning as she turned a slow circle, scanning the circumference of the caves. They'd done their job, protecting the people inside from long hours in direct sunlight or boar attacks. But they were also a good place for an ambush.

Hand resting on the butt of her gun, she glanced from one entry/exit point to another. Here inside the caves, especially with the rain and wind drowning out any sound from the outside, it would be impossible to see anyone coming until they were already there. The Others could ambush them here and they'd never have a chance. Maybe they already had.

Glancing back at Sawyer, who'd managed to get the shirt on and was going through another suitcase for who knew what, then glancing at Jin, she stepped quietly toward the back of the caves.

Staring through the space between two giant slabs of rock that provided a path back to the jungle, she saw that even though it was only late afternoon, the storm had darkened the sky ominously. The trees were shrouded in shadows, lending an added layer of eeriness to the air. She wondered if there was anyone out there, watching her as she stared into the trees.

A flash behind her distracted her, and she turned to see that Sawyer had found a flashlight and flipped it on. He tapped the solid weight of it against his palm, then gritted his teeth as the impact shimmied up his arm and jarred his shoulder. She looked back over at the array of pill bottles. "We need to figure out which pills you should be taking," she said.

"Don't need pills," he muttered, flipping the flashlight back off.

"If you don't take some antibiotics, your shoulder is going to get infected."

"I'm flattered you're worried about me, Sweetheart. I really am. But I don't need your worry. Don't need your pity."

Kate took a deep breath. "If you get an infection, you're just going to get worse and worse until you collapse. And I'm not going to carry you through the jungle if that happens."

"Who says you're coming with me in the first place?"

"Do you really think you can make it through the jungle and find Walt without getting yourself killed?"

"I'll work it out," he muttered.

"Sure you will. You can't hunt, you can barely move your left arm, you don't have a weapon. You'll make it through the jungle just fine."

"Why don't you just cut the shit, Freckles? We both know you ain't Mother Theresa. You can quit pretendin'."

She glared at him a moment, then turned away with a shake of her head. She shouldn't really blame him. If she was the one who'd been shot, she suspected she'd be pissed off too. But the thing of it was, seeing him injured was doing things to her mind, bringing thoughts to the surface that she wanted nothing to do with. Don't think of it, she told herself. Think of everything he's done to piss you off. Think of the fact that he wouldn't give the marshal's case to you, and the way he exposed your secret to everybody. Don't think about what it felt like to kiss him, or the carefree smile she'd glimpsed at the waterfall, before the suitcase had been found.

She sat down near the medicine bottles again, her eyes darting from them to each of the cave's exit points. He could be as big a jerk as he wanted. She'd just follow from a distance.

She wasn't going to examine her reasons for being so determined not to let him go off on his own. She picked up one of the pill bottles. The name seemed familiar. She closed her eyes, trying to remember the conversation with Jack. Was this one of the medications he'd mentioned, that would work for several different things? She twisted the bottle around in her hand. If it was the right one, it could help keep his arm from getting infected. But if it was the wrong one, he could get worse. "Damn it," she whispered. She didn't want to be in this position. Didn't want to have to guess at whether or not she'd picked the right bottle, when Sawyer's health was at stake.

She stared at each of the other bottles in turn. Nothing jumped out at her. She had to make a decision, and she had to make it quickly. They were sitting ducks here, and as difficult as it was going to be, traveling through the jungle at night, during the storm, she'd still feel safer out there than here. It was a lot easier to blend into moving foliage than rocks and abandoned luggage.

"Hey," she said finally, tossing the bottle of pills in Sawyer's direction. They hit the ground and rolled toward him, bouncing off his knee as he knelt over another suitcase. "I think these are the right ones."

"You _think_?"

She shrugged, weary of fighting with him. "If you think you know more about medicine than I do, feel free to come and pick out a different bottle. But I remember Jack mentioning those, and I think they're the right ones."

She stood up and rubbed at the side of her knee, which had taken a hit during her fall and stiffened up a bit. She turned away, but she heard Sawyer grumbling, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him twist the cap off the pill bottle. She fought to contain a smile, which died quickly when an inkling of dread slithered along her spine.

Her gaze was drawn again to the back of the caves, to the shadowy path that led back into the jungle. Her heart pounded involuntarily. Was someone out there? Her breath hitched, and she found herself pulling the gun from her waistband, just to feel the solid weight in her hand. She walked slowly in that direction again, accepting a full water bottle from Jin. She nodded her thanks and watched as he approached Sawyer with another. She saw two more on the ground where he'd been. Apparently someone else had left them behind.

She looked into the narrow exit in the rocks, and was almost sure she saw a flash in the trees. She glanced at Sawyer. He was too busy going through luggage to pay attention to her. She slipped through the exit and scanned the trees, keeping her back against the rock, the gun in her hand. It was impossible to hear any possible foreign sounds over the noise of the storm. But wait...there! There was someone hiding in the trees, just inside the tree line. She caught a glimpse of blond hair. She should have asked Sawyer for descriptions of the people on the boat.

But then a snippet of a voice carried to her on the wind, and she knew it wasn't the Others out there. The voice she'd heard was Shannon's.

If Shannon was out there in the trees, Sayid was almost certainly with her. They'd been spending an awful lot of time together lately, and with Jack gone to the hatch, Sayid had become the group's de facto leader. She expected he'd keep Shannon close by him.

She glanced back into the caves. Neither Sawyer nor Jin had noticed her absence. Or if they had, they weren't doing anything about it.

She bent down and picked up a palm-sized rock. She needed to get Sayid's attention. She didn't know how many people were hidden in the trees, but she didn't want to cause a panic before talking things over with Sayid, nor did she want to stray too far from the caves. If she did, Sawyer would run off and she'd never find him in the rain.

She tossed the rock. It landed near Shannon's feet and she shrieked, spinning around only to be pulled back into the cover of the trees. Just as she'd suspected, Sayid appeared, holding a gun just as she was.

His eyes locked with hers through the wash of rain, and she gestured him closer. After what she suspected were reassurances to Shannon, he sprinted the short distance between them.

"What is going on?" he asked. "Why did you decide to come back here?"

She took a deep breath. "There was a problem with the raft."

His face creased in confusion. "The raft? How do you know this? They have no way of communicating with us."

She quickly relayed what had happened during the past day—the boat searching the beach, her tumble down the hill, coming upon the men from the raft and their trek back to the caves. "Michael told me that the men shot Sawyer, grabbed Walt, then set the raft on fire."

"Are they with you?" he asked.

"Sawyer and Jin are with me. Michael left to look for Walt. I...couldn't try to stop him."

"I understand," Sayid said.

"Sawyer's determined to go after them too, but he's not in any shape to hike through the jungle on his own."

"Kate, you are not responsible for him. He makes his own decisions."

"I know." She blew out a breath. "What happened here? It looks like everyone just got up and ran."

"We were watching the jungle last night and heard noises not far off. I thought perhaps you had changed your mind and come back. I went to meet you, but instead I discovered three men. I did not recognize them. I rushed back, broke everyone into small groups, and we scattered into the trees."

"You didn't hear anything from Jack?"

"No. We didn't have time. I told everyone to try and make their way toward the caves again before dark tonight, but they've likely been slowed by the storm."

"So who's with you? Do you...know where Sun is?"

He looked toward the caves, then back toward the trees. "She is with us," he said.

"We should get her. She should know that Jin's okay."

"I'll bring her," Sayid said.

Kate nodded, and turned back toward the caves.

Moments later, she stood toward the front entrance to the caves, watching Jin and Sun's tearful embrace. They held each other close, their words shaky and quiet. She couldn't understand them, which was just as well. The quiet emotion, the intimacy of the moment made her uncomfortable. She felt like an intruder, and wanted nothing more than to escape, to vanish into the jungle. Their obvious affection reminded her of exactly what she'd lost, what she'd destroyed.

She looked over at Sawyer, who'd commandeered someone's backpack and slung it over his good shoulder. She had no idea what was in it, but it didn't really matter. She took his water bottle, which was already half-empty, and refilled it, along with two others. She tucked two of them into her own pack and gave him the third. "The rain's slowed down some," she murmured. "We should go now."

"Told you I don't need your help, Freckles."

She looked up at him, then turned and looked back at Jin and Sun. Jin raised a hand and brought it to Sun's cheek, gently rubbing away her tears. Kate had to look away, the emotion overwhelming her. "I can get you to the Black Rock," she said to Sawyer. "Let's not argue about this, okay? Let's just go."

He looked down at her, then shook his head, apparently too tired or frustrated to argue anymore. It didn't really matter to her. She just wanted to escape the scene before her, which was only serving to remind her of her own loneliness, her own mistakes.

Muttering something under his breath she couldn't quite understand, he turned and walked out of the caves. She was right behind him when a quiet voice stopped her. "Kate."

She turned and saw Sun, her face a jumble of too many emotions to name. Kate waited, and when Sun spoke again, it was two quiet words that shook her.

"Thank you."

Kate nodded, smiling tremulously. She gestured back to Sawyer, who was heading out into the jungle. "I have to go."

"I understand. Take care of yourself."

"You too," Kate said, smiling once more before turning and hurrying after Sawyer. She caught up to him, thankful for the rain and the relative dark of the early evening. Both would keep her overloaded emotions her dirty little secret.


End file.
